Outdoor Space in the Sun: Mediterranean Inspired Garden Design

When you are contemplating your garden design, it is important to consider aspects that will have a transformative effect on your day-to-day life. There are many places from which you can get garden design inspiration: other gardens, parks, natural landscapes. However, it is important to make your garden design personal to you and your own life experiences. Perhaps a place to start is your favourite holiday destination – this allows you to make a link between a place where you feel at peace and your back-garden haven. Examining wild plants...

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Self heal, a lovely wildflower of grassy areas that is attractive for pollinators

Taking a walk on the wild side: Rewilding your garden

Designers Urquhart and Hunt’s collaboration with Rewilding Britain (see link  https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/support-rewilding/rhs-chelsea-flower-show) at Chelsea 2022 has reiterated the need to incorporate rewilding into garden design. Through an active collaboration between man and nature, we can help to restore nature from our own back gardens (see more about Rewilding Europe here https://rewildingeurope.com/what-is-rewilding-2/). This blog will give a glimpse into some basic steps you can take to boost conservation in your garden design. Viper's bugloss, a lovely wildflower that attracts insects and grows well in long grass areas The lawn. An integral part of many...

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garden, wildlife, insects, wildflowers, gardens, design

Sustainable garden designs – 5 ideas

Whist this subject has waxed and waned in popularity over the last couple of decades, I like to think that we are all now strongly concerned to ensure that our gardens are as eco-friendly as possible and/or, at least, incorporate some aspects of sustainable or green approaches to design.  Since the construction of a garden can have as much impact on the environment as house- construction, it is important to consider these aspects throughout the process.  Sometimes, being eco-friendly can present money savings, too, something that should be of interest...

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wildlife, gardens, design, gardening, designer, wild, areas

Bring in the bugs!

In Ireland, the spring has been slow to start this year, as we have experienced unseasonably low temperatures throughout March.  Now, in early April it finally feels like it is underway: the sap is rising in the trees and the first leaves are breaking bud, daffodils are blooming and temperatures are rising. [caption id="attachment_5095" align="alignnone" width="1024"] View out to the garden (from my Inspiration from Mount Usher garden)[/caption] We hope, at this time of year, to be able to move from the house into the garden to enjoy the first warming rays...

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New perennial movement: wash out or taking root?

[caption id="attachment_3838" align="aligncenter" width="614"] Grasses and perennials as used in my Bloom show garden for Barretstown[/caption] With the Garden and Landscape Design Association's (GLDA) seminar on the horizon this weekend, the focus is very much on the so-called "new perennial movement" or "prairie planting" style of planting design that has captured the imagination of garden designers for the last twenty years of so.  This is probably one of the biggest fashion shake-ups to have gripped the garden design world (both amateur and professional) for quite some time. Even minimalist and avant-garde designers who typically...

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Exposing Layers and Meaning in 21st Century Garden Design – GLDA Seminar FEB’ 2014

For a day of garden design inspiration and shared passion for all things gardening, I can recommend attending the forthcoming GLDA Seminar that will be held on February 8th 2014 at The Crowne Plaza Conference Centre Northwood. The Garden and Landscape Designers Association have put together an unmissable line-up of speakers who share not only a breath-taking knowledge of their subject, but also a passion for what they do. Attention to detail is a theme that runs through the day’s line-up. Landscape Architect, Feargus McGarvey’s title is ‘Observation’ where he reflects on spatial relationships and site...

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Foraging for food – the good, the bad and the ugly, part 1

Whilst undertaking a road survey recently, I came across a super example of "food-for-free" in the Irish countryside when this apple tree presented its fruits to me. [caption id="attachment_3354" align="aligncenter" width="614"] Wild Irish apple tree![/caption] This native Irish apple tree is growing right alongside the N6 motorway in Westmeath and is a fantastic example of the bounties that our hedgerows and woodlands can offer us in the autumn.  All we have to do is look what's around us and we have the best natural foods available in our own countryside. [caption id="attachment_3356" align="aligncenter"...

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Great autumn perennial plants – Joe Pye Weed

I was delighted to catch Carol Klein extolling the delights of the Eupatorium plant on BBC's Gardeners' World this week having just selected the fantastic variety Eupatorium purpureum subsp. maculatum 'Atropurpureum' or Purple Joe Pye weed for a client of mine. [caption id="attachment_3341" align="aligncenter" width="585"] Eupatorium purpureum (Purple Joe Pye Weed) - pic. taken at Gardenworld[/caption] I was looking for an autumn flowering perennial with impact, suited to a heavy (wet, slightly acidic) soil.  This seems to be the ideal tall flowering perennial.  The flowers are pinky-purple in colour, slightly unusual (not...

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Garden hedges using native, wildlife-friendly plants

The weather is a bit windy, wet and wintry here at the moment and maybe the very last thing you are thinking about is the state of your garden.  But if you had been considering a revamp of the garden perimeter with a bit of new planting during the course of last year then you need to know that now is the perfect time of year for planting a new hedge. It’s time to take action because we are currently in the dormant season for deciduous trees and shrubs and this...

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Coppicing trees in the garden and coppice woodlands

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="615"] Mature coppice in Herefordshire[/caption] Whilst I was working with the BTCV (British Trust for Conservation Volunteers) a number of years ago (quite a number actually!), I completed a super training course in woodland crafts at the Greenwood Trust in Ironbridge, Shropshire.  Since then, I am in the habit of advocating coppicing not only as a useful and productive way of managing woodlands (of all sizes) but also as a method for controlling the size of trees  in small gardens, especially where space is at a premium but the...

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